10. Changing Mindset with All Consuming Circumstances- A New Perspective

Hello, my beautiful friend, and welcome to the Mind Body Alignment podcast. I'm your host, Tessa Romero, and also your coach. I'm here to help teach you all the skills, tools, and encouragement that you need to not only know who you are, but how to become exactly who you want to be, while going through a healing journey that allows you to build a mindset that finally supports you. I'm so glad that you're here. Let's get started. Oh, my goodness. Friends, I truly hope that your life has been filled with so many good, exciting things going on. Really, I do. And if your life hasn't. If it's felt like your circumstances have felt all consuming, and there are so many hard, challenging things going on, and it's becoming all you can think about, like your mindset is just revolving around it. This podcast episode is for you. And the reason why I wanted to record this episode is because of my group coaching that I have going on right now. I mean, that's kind of why I haven't been posting episodes consistently, if I'm being completely honest. It's just. I told you guys my analogy. Some balls can bounce. I totally view my podcast as, like, a great outlet and something that I love to do, but it's also a ball that can bounce, and I'm okay with that. But I love serving you here, too. So in my group coaching, I. In my group coaching, two times a week, I do live sessions in there. And in the live sessions, I usually spend an hour, an hour and a half with my group, and they can just ask me whatever they need to ask in terms of the program mindset, shame, what they're going through, different things that they could be trying, like, just anything, anything and everything. We just chat together to help them get their mind in a really good place. And one of the questions from last week on one of the live sessions was, I wish I had the question written out exactly so I could really get this to you guys. But basically the question was, what do you do? Like, how do you change your mindset? That's how it was. How do you change your mindset when it feels like your circumstances are all consuming? And she went on to talk about infertility and miscarriages. And she goes, this is, like, all I can think about. And it's all that I really focus on and changing my mindset about. It just feels like one big lie. And I get this. I really do get it. And I know that so many of you listening to this are going to get it, too, because think about it. Infertility, like, you want a baby so badly, you see babies around you and maybe you don't have any kids, and it's just all you can think about. I get that miscarriage. That's devastating. I had a miscarriage in October, and it is devastating to have a miscarriage. And it can be like that thing that just feels all consuming, that you just. You can't believe that it happened to you. And now you're thinking about it all the time and questioning your fertility in general and your body. And it just, like it's a storm from there, but it could also come into divorce. Let's say you're going through a divorce and it feels like your whole life is crashing down and it's all you can think about and. And it's so hard. And maybe you have, like, difficult relationships within your family. So extended family, and you have difficult relationships there, and it feels like the only thing going on. I get it. And I think we can all resonate with this to some capacity. So I wanted to actually record an episode about this because I love the breakthrough that we were able to have in my coaching group and in the community on there, because we were able to talk about it on there. Now, I understand that not everyone's going to agree with this approach, and not everyone's going to like what I have to say about this, and that is okay. I totally respect your opinion, and I'm asking you to respect mine even if you don't agree. That's all I'm asking. But I really hope that this serves you the way that it was able to serve my coaching community. So let's go back to the idea of infertility and miscarriages. Heartbreaking, devastating, super unfair, we don't deserve it. And yet it happens. It's outside of your control. I mean, you can try and, like, influence your body, you can try and support your body, but you don't control it. So it's very important to keep in mind first what you do and don't control so that we don't put ourselves in this position of having the whole weight of the world on us, that we're responsible for how people feel and we control their reactions. And, well, I don't want to do this because I don't want to upset them. Because you believe that you control how they respond to you. We don't want to put ourselves in that position. Okay, so you don't control these circumstances going on. Now, I want you to shift your perspective a little bit, and I'm going To help you do this, let's imagine that your best friend was going through infertility, okay? And it's been years of infertility. And you know that all she wants is a baby. Like, you know that and she's your best friend. Would you call her three times a day and talk to her for an hour at a time and just remind her, like, you are leading the conversation, not her? Let's imagine you're leading the conversation and you're just reminding her of these crappy circumstances. Would you do that? Would you call her three times a day for an hour of time and just say things like, wow, can you believe that you're just still not pregnant? This is just insane. Like, gosh, this just sucks so bad. I don't know how you do it. I don't know how you get through a day. Really. This is awful. Like, would you. Would you do that? I can't imagine you doing that with your best friend. And would you text her 33 reminders in a day? Would you text her little reminders like, you're still not pregnant yet? Yeah, that baby's cute and you're never going to have one. Would you say things like that to her? No, you wouldn't? And the problem, when we feel like our circumstances are all consuming, that's what we're doing to ourselves. We are being worse than a bully. Worse than a bully. It's where I say it's worse than a bully, because I cannot even imagine, like, someone you don't like, let's say you, you hate someone. You really don't like someone. Could you imagine going up to that person that you hate and let's say they struggle with infertility and telling them, yeah, well, you're never going to have a baby. And that just sucks for you because you just don't deserve a baby. And you're always going to struggle with infertility. Like, would you say the things to them that you say to yourself about your circumstances that feel all consuming when you're in that headspace of it's all you can think about? Would you say that to somebody that you hate? No, absolutely not. Absolutely not. I cannot imagine that. And when we think about putting ourselves in this position where we allow our thoughts to only focus on the negatives of our circumstances? Yes, it feels hard, but we're creating our own suffering. And remember, I'm a huge promoter of be your own best friend. That is not something you would do to your best friend. So what would you do? What would you do if Your. If your best friend was going through infertility struggles, you wouldn't call her three times a day and spend three hours on the phone talking about how you don't believe she's ever going to get pregnant and it's always going to be this hard and she maybe just doesn't deserve a baby and she can't trust her body. And, you know, you wouldn't. You wouldn't do that, and you wouldn't send her 33 text messages of little reminders throughout the day of the same things that you're saying to yourself right now. You wouldn't do that to her. So we know that's what you wouldn't do. What would you do? What would you do? Really think about that before I give you any answers. What would you do for your best friend that was struggling with infertility? Personally, if my best friend was struggling with infertility, I would help provide healthy distractions. I would help lift her up. I would help encourage her when she's feeling down. And you know what? That's not toxic positivity. That's called hope. It's okay to have faith. It's okay to have hope, and we don't have to have everything crashing down all the time, calling it toxic positivity. If you try to encourage someone through a hard time. And really that's what it's kind of come down to, I feel it's is we're just. We're not allowed to say anything. It's like you feel like you're just always going to say the wrong thing, so then we end up saying nothing, which also isn't that helpful. Because people, we need more encouragement. We need more positive influences in our lives. And I feel like it's your job and it's my job to be that person, to be that person for people, especially when their circumstances are really hard and really unfair. We all need that in our lives, and sometimes it's really hard to be that for yourself. And I totally get that. So I just, I really want us to see, like, how can I actually support people if someone's having a terrible day? Wouldn't you want to help them have a better day? If your best friend was going through years of infertility and she just felt like she was in the thick of it and having these terrible days, what do you want to, like, take her out and, and help her have, like, a great day? Maybe you would help pamper her, take her to lunch. You guys could have a picnic at a park. You could go for A walk around a track, like something, anything. You could get super creative. I mean, you don't have to have a ton of money to do that. You could just help her and you can let her talk about whatever she wants to talk about, but you also wouldn't contribute and say, yeah, you know, you are never going to get pregnant. You don't know that. That's not a fact. Just because she hasn't gotten pregnant yet doesn't mean you know that she's never going to get pregnant. And it's not your place to say that. So I just believe that when it. When it feels like your circumstances are all consuming, I have clients going through divorce, infertility, struggling with family relationships. I mean, all kinds of things. And when we believe that this is the way it's always going to be, there's no hope left. We can't stay positive. And in positive, I don't mean finding a bright side to infertility. That's not what I'm asking you to do. I'm asking you to be kind to yourself through that, to support yourself through that. Because, yeah, those circumstances are so freaking hard and you don't deserve it. You don't deserve that. But it's what you're going through. And no amount of our mind thinking about how it should be different is going to change it. Right? So we have to condition our minds to start supporting us, to start helping us through the difficult circumstances. Just like you would do with a best friend if your best friend was getting divorced. Just like I have a client right now going through a divorce. Super difficult. I mean, I'm not telling her what can you imagine if I was telling her, yeah, you're right, you're never going to get married again. You're never going to find anyone better. He was as good as it's going to get. And the way that he's treating you is clearly what you deserve. What? No, no, no, no, no, no. That's not what I'm doing with her. Right. I'm helping her find herself right now because that's something that she can do. I'm helping her build a mindset that does support her because it's something she can do and control what is in her control. What she's thinking, what she's saying, what she's doing. Not him. We don't control him. And that is where I feel we can start really helping each other and helping ourselves. When you truly become your own best friend, you would not spend three hours on the phone every day convincing each other about how life is always going to be this hard, you don't deserve any better and you're never going to have what you want. And we wouldn't send 33 text message reminders of just short little reminders of honestly just hurtful things. But yet I want you to do some self discovery here. Does that sound like what you're doing to yourself? When you feel like your circumstances are all consuming and it's all you can think about, Are you trying, are you helping yourself or are you allowing your mind? Are you giving your mind permission to just manifest here and continue being creative here and just going, going, that's what your mind's gonna do. Like it is so creative and master thinker. Like it, it just keeps going. And if you don't give it any direction, if you don't discipline it at all and condition it at all. Negativity is easy. It is so easy to find the negative. I mean, I like work with positivity and it's easy to find the negative. Right when you, if you follow me on social media, on my Instagram, I make my reels and I'll post like negative thoughts and then I'll flip them with positive thoughts. And that's more to help like you see options of what you could be doing too. That helps you. And they're just, they're just easy. And I like that it's easy and like you can implement it. It's not complicated. It's easy to find a negative in any given situation that I'm recording and people are like, do you really have these thoughts? Well, no, not necessarily, but if I played the video back, like I already had an idea in my mind, oh, I can see how this would be portrayed in a negative light. So it's easy for me to make this content. And if you look at your circumstances, it's easy to find the negatives. Always you have to intentionally seek out the positive. You have to intentionally look for the good. But that saying when you focus on the good, the good gets better is beyond true. Like so deeply true. And all you have to do is condition yourself to do it. Just like you have given yourself permission to find the negatives and to stay here and not grow out, like, not grow through it. You give yourself permission to find the negatives. Negativity is a healthy part of mental wellness. You give yourself permission to find the negatives, the things that aren't working, and then go through them, correct what you can correct, change what you can change, accept what needs acceptance. Do something, don't just stay with a negative thought. I'm never going to get pregnant. It's always going to be like this. Things will never get better. Why we shouldn't just stay there and you don't have to stay there. And that's why I really wanted to share this episode. Because when I was able to talk to my community about this, it resonated with so many of them. And I talked to my client going through divorce about this concept of like, would you call your best friend three times a day and send her 33 text messages saying the same things that you're saying when you think about your divorce and when you think about your the future and the unknown and the uncertainty and, and how you're going to do things and what you're going to do. Would you tell your friend, like, oh, yeah, now you're going to have to financially support yourself. You're probably not going to be able to find a good job that you like and your kids are going to hate daycare that they're going to have to go to. Like, would you tell her that? No, I know you wouldn't. I know you wouldn't. But because you are such a kind person, you're kind. And why can't we just do that to ourselves too? It's not just an act when you're being kind to other people. You truly are empathetic. You are kind. You're devoted and intentional and responsive. You are these things. You're just not applying it to yourself, too. But all the things that you want to be are already inside of you. You're already displaying them in other areas. It's just about turning them in on yourself. Now use the kindness on yourself. Use the empathy on yourself. Have the self compassion, have the self love. You can do it. You just have to be willing to be vulnerable enough to allow yourself to love yourself. That's extremely vulnerable. Why? Because you know your full story. That's right. You know your full story. And no one else on this entire planet will ever know your full story. I don't care how many people you tell your story to and how much you think your spouse knows everything about you. There's no way for them to know every single thing that you've been through and how it's affected you. You're the only person. You're the only person that's capable of knowing that. So that's why it gets so difficult to be kind to ourselves and to love ourselves. Because we're not just seeing our best friend and who we believe she is and her potential and how we see her express herself. And we're so proud of her. We're not just seeing that. Right. We know the bad things that we've done. We know the wrong things that we've said and how we've lashed out and we weren't proud of it and how we've numbed and the trauma that we've been through and the shame that we carry and the negativity that we battle in our mind. We know all these things. Other people don't, but we do. So when you know that about yourself, it becomes harder and harder in your mind to love yourself because you're focusing on the bad. And when you focus on the bad, the bad gets worse. And then we believe that we're bad people. We're not bad people. We've been through bad things. We've been through hard things. We've learned survival techniques so that we can literally survive through those, through the trauma and through the shame, because nobody taught us how to do it. You know what? I can argue with you all day long. I don't want to argue. I just want you to understand that you did the best you could. Wherever you're at right now in your life, whatever circumstances you're up against, however you got here, you did the best you could. Think about what you do and why you do it. Why do you do it? Yeah, sure, you see clear as day what you're doing, but why are you doing it? Why are you yelling? Why are you numbing? Why are you shutting down, procrastinating, avoiding. Why? Because you've been through really hard things. And so. And you know what? Sometimes it feels easier to escape the emotion through numbing than trying to feel your way through it. And emotions don't go anywhere until you feel them. They hang on tight until you feel them and then they let go of you. You don't get to control them. You have influence. Right? We help ourselves. Thoughts create feelings. There's a lot of ways that you can help yourself. But at the end of the day, once the feelings there, you have to feel it if you want it to pass. So I know this feels like a lot coming out and it started as circumstances and just the way that we would talk to our best friends. But I just want you to have the bigger picture of why we're doing what we're doing. And that's where you're responsible to do the self discovery work to better understand yourself, get to know yourself, repair the relationship with yourself and grow into who you want to Be. You first have to know who you are, why you're here, what's happened. And then it gets a lot easier to stop calling yourself three times a day, spending three hours on the phone talking about things that you would never say to your best friend and getting 33 text message reminders a day talking about how your circumstances are never going to change. You deserve all this terribleness. You're never going to find better. You're going to be stuck here forever. You won't be able to handle these things. You can't figure it out. You don't have the resources, you don't have enough support. Why we don't have to do that to ourselves. It's a choice. And I know that there will be pushback with this, but this is what I strongly believe and this is what I will stand in. And if you believe something different, I support you. But my mind is not changing on this. So I really hope that you can approach this with an open mind and a soft heart and apply it to your own life to see so much deeper than just be your own best friend and talk kindly to yourself. But really, what does that look like? What does that mean? And how do you need to do it too? So I just wanted to film this episode for you. Hopefully it helps you when it comes to handling different difficult circumstances that I know we all go through to some capacity. They look a little bit different, but difficult nonetheless. Hard, traumatic, full of shame. Like we go through really, really hard things and your job is just to build a mindset that supports you through the really hard things outside of your control. Most times are outside of your control. Most times, circumstances are outside of your control. The only things you control are what you think about them and what you do about them and how much are you going to do about them when you think you can't do anything. So thoughts come first. You have to get your mind right first. And then, and then your actions can change. Your actions can align because the idea is there of what to do. But if you think you can't do anything, you're not going to do anything. So thoughts have to come first. But that's going to wrap up today's episode. I do want to remind you guys, actually, I haven't even announced it on the podcast, so this isn't in a reminder, it's an announcement. But like I said, my group coaching is going on right now. They started in January, on January 3rd. And my next group, I have decided, will be my last group. Oh my gosh, this sounds like Such a. A huge commitment. But I am only running one more group of 2022 and it's going to start on April 3rd. Enrollment will open on March 15th. So I'm giving you guys a couple months notice so that you can plan to enroll. Plan to enroll and not wait until 2023 when I run another group. But yeah, I'm only doing two groups this year. So if you really feel like you could use that journey of self discovery and self healing and just the support and encouragement and roadmap to walk you through it. Mind Body Alignment is such a great resource for you and I want you to strongly consider it. Strongly consider it. Okay, so if within Mind Body Alignment we go through seven different modules spaced over 12 weeks, you have over 40 video modules to help you through the material. Plus, like I mentioned at the beginning of this podcast, I am live with you twice a week for an hour to an hour and a half. It just depends on how many questions there are on the live and. And all of those live coaching sessions are saved to your student account on Kajabi for Life so you never have to worry about losing them. And I help the community as much as I can in as many ways as I can. We engage on there, but I also share like book recommendations and you can post your questions there. You can email me what you're going through and I'll do like a private chat with you through email if you. Because I totally get it. In a group setting, we don't always want to talk about what we're going through. Like that takes more vulnerability and you can work up to that, but maybe you're not ready to in the beginning. My email is an excellent option for my group coaching students as well. So this is your option. It's available to you. Enrollment opens March 15. It's going to be amazing and I'm like super bummed that we're only doing two sessions this year. However, I'm also extremely thrilled about it because that's two incredible sessions of helping approximately 200 women. Like, that's amazing. It's amazing. And then there will be more group coaching sessions in 2023. But that was the decision that I made for myself for this year, is to only run two. And enrollment starts March 15th. Guys, March 15th. It's open for 10 days so you can enroll, start getting access to the bonus mindset module, all the good things. And then we will officially ban together on April 3rd. So as always, I hope that all of my content serves you. I create it for you. That's why it's here. Because I just want to serve you. I just want to help you. And I know you can do it. Sometimes we just need the right type of resources and encouragement and support to get there. But you can get there. You can get there. And I'm here to help you. I'm here to help you. So anyway, friends, I will talk to you so soon. And I hope that you. Your days in your life are filled with so much good and happiness and joy. And if they're not right now, just know that there's. There's things you can do about that. When it comes to the way you're thinking about your circumstances, that what this whole episode was about. When life feels really hard, you don't control all of that, but you control what you think about it and how you're talking to yourself and what you're doing. And I just want you to always feel empowered to focus on those three things. Okay, I'll see you later. Thank you so much for being here for this week's episode. If this episode serves you, please feel free to subscribe to the podcast and share it. I love spreading the message of positivity and healing and how they work together. My goal is to continue serving you, and I can't wait to form more meaningful relationships together here on the podcast and elsewhere, such as Instagram and my email list. We'll talk more soon.